ARTICLE
Digital Technologies Are a Useful Yet Underutilized Tool for African Microenterprises
How smartphones and computers improve performance for African micro-sized businesses — but not enough for most to use them.
Results - 25 of at least 101 items found
Apr 6, 2023
Digital Technologies Are a Useful Yet Underutilized Tool for African Microenterprises
How smartphones and computers improve performance for African micro-sized businesses — but not enough for most to use them.
Feb 15, 2023
Making Sustainability-Linked Bonds More Impactful
To maximize the impact of sustainability-linked bonds and maintain recent market growth, how they are structured and regulated needs to evolve, IFC research finds.
Feb 7, 2023
Want More Investment in African Infrastructure? Think Better Quality Institutions
An IFC study finds that improvements in governance and regulatory quality could boost private investment in African infrastructure by up to 0.8% of GDP over 4 years.
Nov 9, 2022
Adapting to Natural Disasters in Africa: What’s in it for the Private Sector?
A study on private sector investment opportunities that respond to increasingly frequent and severe floods and droughts in Africa.
Oct 12, 2022
Trade Finance in West Africa
This report provides new evidence on the size and nature of the gap between demand and supply of trade finance in Côte D’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal.
Report | English, Français | 81 pages | October 2022
Sep 11, 2022
A Climate Opportunity for the Private Sector
How to design voluntary carbon markets to attract corporate investors, drawing on lessons learned from IFC’s forests bond which matured in 2021, is discussed.
Article | September 2022
Jun 23, 2022
Gauging Appetite of African Institutional Investors for New Asset Classes
The market for alternative asset classes is examined in a joint study by IFC, the African Development Bank, and the Making Finance Work for Africa Partnership.
Jun 8, 2022
Emerging Market Green Bonds
The latest developments in emerging market and developing economy green bonds are outlined by IFC in a report with Amundi, a leading European asset manager.
May 11, 2022
Banks Show Strong Signs of Recovery from the Pandemic
Despite some positive economic signs as the pandemic begins to recede, financial institutions in emerging markets face multiple new risks, a new survey finds.
English | 8 pages | 2022 IFC
Feb 10, 2022
AI-Enabled Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)—The Next Frontier for Global SaaS Start-Ups from India
This report, developed by IFC and Stellaris, examines the growing potential of India’s AI-led software as a service (SaaS) start-ups and analyzes the role that the country, which is already a leader in the global software ecosystem, can play in an AI-led future. India is well-positioned to be at the forefront of the AI revolution. By 2030, AI applications and services together have the potential to create $500 billion of market value and almost 5 million jobs. The report is based on an industry-wide study and insights from the AI4Biz Challenge, organized to identify and recognize groundbreaking, early-stage Indian AI SaaS companies.
English | 80 Pages | IFC 2022
Jan 18, 2022
Sustainability-Linked Finance—Mobilizing Capital for Sustainability in Emerging Markets
Sustainability-linked finance is designed to incentivize the borrower’s achievement of environmental, social, or governance targets through pricing incentives. Launched in 2017, it has now become the fastest-growing sustainable finance instrument, with over $809 billion issued to date in sustainability-linked loans and bonds. Yet these instruments are still nascent in emerging markets, which represent only 5 percent of total issuance to date. This note shares examples of recent sustainability-linked financing, including several involving IFC in various roles, to highlight how investors can utilize these new instruments in emerging markets and mitigate greenwashing risks.
English | 8 Pages—January—Note 110 | IFC 2022
Jan 13, 2022
Banking on FinTech in Emerging Markets
Despite near-universal access to financial services in advanced economies, financial exclusion is stubbornly persistent in many emerging markets, leaving huge swaths of low-income populations unbanked or underbanked. FinTech companies, which apply innovative technologies to deliver such services in new ways, have begun to tap into the enormous unmet demand that this represents. These companies are starting to thrive in emerging markets, though regulatory issues, particularly weak consumer protection measures, remain to be resolved in many countries. If these can be overcome, and more progress toward universal access to digital infrastructure can be made, FinTechs will continue to scale and spread.
English | 8 Pages—January—Note 109 | IFC 2022
Dec 17, 2021
What Gets Measured Gets Done: Using a Corporate Scorecard to Drive Greater Investment Impact
In 2018, IFC’s shareholders authorized a capital increase of $5.5 billion, the largest increase in its history. The capital increase was based on a strategy that emphasizes creating markets and mobilizing private capital, and came with ambitious operational undertakings designed to ensure IFC’s place at the forefront of development finance, and to reinvigorate development in the world’s most challenging environments. To help implement these hefty undertakings, measure progress, and motivate staff, IFC took a fresh look at how the Corporation uses operational targets to achieve strategic goals and overhauled its corporate scorecard. Institutions seeking to implement a transformational strategy, as well as impact investors and development finance institutions balancing financial and impact objectives, can learn from how the revamped scorecard balances risk-taking with prudence, innovation with traditional business priorities, and speed with governance, to drive greater investment impact.
English | 8 Pages—December—Note 108 | IFC 2021
Nov 18, 2021
Municipal Broadband Networks—Opportunities, Business Models, Challenges, and Case Studies
The accelerated use of digital services during the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of high-speed Internet access. Yet a large share of adults in emerging markets still live in cities where the availability of high-speed Internet is limited. There is a strong case to be made for municipal broadband networks, which are fully or partially facilitated, built, operated, or financed by local governments, often in partnership with the private sector. There are three basic models for creating and operating these networks, and every network must work in the unique context of the city it will serve. But if they are well implemented, these models can offer digital access to city residents, help close the digital divide, and create opportunities for private sector players in both advanced and emerging markets.
English | 8 Pages—November—Note 107 | IFC 2021
Oct 28, 2021
Financing Deep Tech
Deep tech companies—those built on advances in biotechnology, robotics, electronics, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies—aim to solve complex social and environmental challenges. Today the majority of deep tech companies are being launched in developed countries, yet the solutions they can provide are applicable globally. Many of these solutions are especially critical to emerging markets, as the intractable challenges of climate, health, and connectivity, among other issues, disproportionately affect these nations. Addressing these challenges is a strategic priority for development finance institutions and governments worldwide, so financing deep tech companies and boosting deep tech ecosystems in order to deliver new solutions globally is a pressing matter. Doing so, however, requires substantial capital and carries a higher degree of risk than ordinary venture investments. This note examines the process of financing a deep tech company, including the benefits an
English | 8 Pages—October—Special Note 1 | IFC 2021
Oct 14, 2021
Creating Housing Markets in Emerging Market Economies
At the beginning of the 20th century less than 15 percent of people across the globe lived in cities. This figure has risen to 50 percent (4.4 billion people) today and will exceed 66 percent (7.7 billion) by 2050.1 There is a significant shortfall of housing to meet the needs of people moving to cities, most of whom have limited resources but strong hopes for better educational and employment opportunities. Direct public provision of housing is not affordable for most national governments, so more than 1.6 billion people will struggle to secure housing by 2025. Addressing this under-provision of housing will require connecting capital with low-income urbanizing populations, including solutions to make the private sector more responsive to the investment opportunities that urbanization presents.
English | 8 pages — October — Note 106 | IFC 2021
Aug 2, 2021
Investing for Impact: The Global Impact Investing Market 2020
A comprehensive IFC assessment of the global impact investing market with estimates of market size, including publicly and privately managed impact assets.
Jul 2, 2021
Blended Concessional Finance—The Benefits of Transparency and Access
Blended concessional finance, the combination of commercial finance from the private sector and development finance institutions (DFIs) with concessional finance from public and other sources, is increasingly being used by DFIs to support developmentally important projects where normal DFI or commercial finance is not available because of the high risks involved.
English | 8 pages—July—Note 105 | IFC 2021
Jun 17, 2021
Enabling A Competitive Mobile Sector in Emerging Markets Through the Development of Tower Companies
Sharing mobile network infrastructure through specialized companies called towercos is a business model with the potential to accelerate access to quality mobile connectivity for individuals and businesses in emerging markets. A significant number of developing countries have yet to adopt this model, however, and many others continue to struggle with competition issues within their tower markets. This note provides the rationale and policy options for a light regulatory regime that can enable the entry and sustainable development of a dynamic market for towercos in emerging markets. The note also discusses the evolution of the towerco model into small cells and distributed antenna systems, both of which help enable high-speed mobile connectivity technologies like 4G and 5G.
English | 8 pages—June—Note 104 | IFC 2021
May 18, 2021
Private Sector Initiatives in Forced Displacement Contexts: Constraints and Opportunities for Market-based Approaches
The number of forcibly displaced persons has been rising in recent years, and many displacements have become protracted. However, public resources available to assist individuals and families have dwindled, exacerbating already strained situations. Amid this backdrop, private sector initiatives have emerged to help create jobs both for displaced people and their host communities. While market-based approaches in refugee contexts are still new, initiatives in several countries have demonstrated the valuable role that private sector firms and investors can play. This note discusses examples of these market-based initiatives, related challenges, and conflict-sensitive approaches for overcoming these challenges. The note also discusses the important role that development agencies can play in de-risking private sector development through market-creating strategies, partnerships, and blended concessional finance.
English | 8 pages—May—Note 103 | IFC 2021
Apr 28, 2021
Enabling Private Investment in 5G Connectivity in Emerging Markets—An Assessment of Challenges and Policy Options
This note proposes a high-level framework to assess challenges and policy options to enabling private sector-led investment in 5G connectivity in emerging markets. 5G is the latest mobile network technology and it has the potential to provide high-speed Internet connectivity and enable digital transformation across multiple sectors of an economy. The proposed framework leverages industry data to articulate the digital divide and benchmark the enabling environment for 5G connectivity in emerging markets. The note concludes with recommendations on policy options and business strategies, drawing from early experiences in advanced markets and major opportunities and challenges in emerging markets.
English | 8 pages — April —Note 102 | IFC 2021
Apr 15, 2021
Blue Natural Capital: Enhancing Business Outcomes and Sustainability of Coastal Tourism Markets
The COVID-19 pandemic hit the tourism industry particularly hard, affecting livelihoods and exacerbating some pressures on the natural capital resource base. Supporting the tourism sector recovery is an opportunity to Build Back Better, ensuring that business investments lead to a sustainable and resilient shared-growth pathway that is good for tourism and the natural capital on which it depends. Further sustainable management of the Blue Economy could more than double its economic contribution to global GDP. Therefore, the “new normal” must deepen the consideration of Blue Natural Capital and its dynamic relationship with economic sectors across coastal landscapes and markets. The experience of the State of Palawan in the Philippines is explored in this note. It serves as a useful model for weighing the opportunities and challenges typical of coastal tourism areas and exploring natural dependencies therein.
English | 8 pages — April —Note 101 | IFC 2021
Apr 12, 2021
Promoting Impact by Creating Markets: Management and Measurement
This 100th EM Compass note explains why it is important to “create markets” to promote development, and how development finance institutions and impact fund managers can draw on IFC’s Anticipated Impact Measurement and Monitoring system to assess the contribution of their investments to both market creation and project outcomes.
English | 8 pages—March—Note 100 | IFC 2021
Mar 19, 2021
Artificial Intelligence in Emerging Markets
The latest trends in AI and how investors, clients, and governments can harness its full potential in emerging markets while minimizing its risks is explored.
English | 148 pages | IFC 2021
Mar 8, 2021
How Firms Are Responding And Adapting During COVID-19 And Recovery
The COVID-19 crisis has disproportionately affected the most vulnerable firms and individuals in emerging markets, especially women and low-income populations. These groups faced significant challenges to growth and prosperity before the pandemic, and COVID-19 has only exacerbated their plights, resulting in even wider global inequities, including a further increase in global financial and digital divides. The private sector has already begun to respond to the crisis—in sectors such as digital infrastructure, trade, power, and tourism, and with methods that cut across sectors, such as inclusive business models, disruptive technologies, social bonds, and private equity. This proves that businesses can play a vital role in amplifying the public and humanitarian response to the crisis, while supporting recovery and driving strategic growth going forward, and setting the stage for “building back better” post crisis. This report highlights opportunities for businesses in emerging markets t
English | 136 pages | IFC 2021
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ARTICLE
Digital Technologies Are a Useful Yet Underutilized Tool for African Microenterprises
How smartphones and computers improve performance for African micro-sized businesses — but not enough for most to use them.
-
ARTICLE
Making Sustainability-Linked Bonds More Impactful
To maximize the impact of sustainability-linked bonds and maintain recent market growth, how they are structured and regulated needs to evolve, IFC research fin
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ARTICLE
Want More Investment in African Infrastructure? Think Better Quality Institutions
An IFC study finds that improvements in governance and regulatory quality could boost private investment in African infrastructure by up to 0.8% of GDP over 4 y
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ARTICLE
Adapting to Natural Disasters in Africa: What’s in it for the Private Sector?
A study on private sector investment opportunities that respond to increasingly frequent and severe floods and droughts in Africa.
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REPORT
Trade Finance in West Africa
This report provides new evidence on the size and nature of the gap between demand and supply of trade finance in Côte D’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal.
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ARTICLE
A Climate Opportunity for the Private Sector
How to design voluntary carbon markets to attract corporate investors, drawing on lessons learned from IFC’s forests bond which matured in 2021, is discussed.
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REPORT
Gauging Appetite of African Institutional Investors for New Asset Classes
The market for alternative asset classes is examined in a joint study by IFC, the African Development Bank, and the Making Finance Work for Africa Partnership.
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REPORT
Emerging Market Green Bonds
The latest developments in emerging market and developing economy green bonds are outlined by IFC in a report with Amundi, a leading European asset manager.
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ARTICLE
Banks Show Strong Signs of Recovery from the Pandemic
Despite some positive economic signs as the pandemic begins to recede, financial institutions in emerging markets face multiple new risks, a new survey finds.
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REPORT
Investing for Impact: The Global Impact Investing Market 2020
A comprehensive IFC assessment of the global impact investing market with estimates of market size, including publicly and privately managed impact assets.
Results - 100 of at least 132 items found
Jul 20, 2018
A Practical Tool to Create Economic Opportunity for Low-Income Communities
Private businesses and investors can create markets and accelerate growth for low-income communities in emerging markets. In doing so, they benefit from estimates of poverty in the targeted market segments they seek to serve. While national household surveys provide poverty data, they are often too costly and overly broad for the purposes of private enterprises. Use of the Poverty Probability Index can help businesses improve their estimates of poverty and thereby better tailor their operations and strategies to specific populations.
English | 6pages - July - Note 56 | IFC 2018 |
Jun 28, 2018
Peru’s Works for Taxes Scheme: An Innovative Solution to Accelerate Private Provision of Infrastructure Investment
Created in Peru in 2008, Works for Taxes is an innovative approach to accelerating infrastructure investment. It allows private firms to “pay” their income taxes in advance through the execution of public works projects. By accepting infrastructure projects in lieu of future taxes, national, regional, and local governments can forego mobilization of public funds and reduce the burden on government budgets, as the private sector assumes the upfront costs and management of new infrastructure projects.
English l 7pages l - June - Note 55 l IFC 2018 |
May 16, 2018
Modelo Peru: A Mobile Money Platform Offering Interoperability Towards Financial Inclusion
Like most emerging markets, Peru suffers from low banking penetration and faces challenges to providing financial services. Beginning in 2015, a strategy called Modelo Peru emerged as a collaboration between financial institutions, telecom companies, and the government, with the goal of launching a mobile money platform to better serve the nation’s unbanked and underbanked. The platform’s main innovative feature is interoperability among these three groups to achieve scale and breed competition among e-money issuers.
English | 9 pages - May - Note 54 | IFC 2018 |
May 15, 2018
How Technology Creates Markets: Trends and Examples for Private Investors in Emerging Markets
Technological progress is often associated with the creation of novel and useful products through innovation and ingenuity. Yet in several emerging markets, including low-income economies, it is often more common to adopt, adapt, and scale technologies created elsewhere. EM Compass Report
English | 100 Pages - April | IFC, 2018 |
Apr 19, 2018
Crowding-In Capital Attracts Institutional Investors to Emerging Market Infrastructure Through Co-Lending Platform
Financing infrastructure in emerging markets is a critical global challenge for sustainable development. Through a new IFC program, private institutional investors can directly participate in the evolving infrastructure asset class in emerging markets. The program, IFC’s Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Program (MCPP) for Infrastructure, creates a structure that overcomes several hurdles that have inhibited the flow of private capital to emerging market infrastructure projects. Read more.
English | April 2018, Note 53 |
Apr 19, 2018
Crowding-In Capital: How Insurance Companies Can Expand Access to Finance
Development institutions, governments, and the investment community have been exploring ways to increase private capital flows to support critical development projects in emerging markets. A new financing mechanism applies the risk-bearing capacity and know-how of insurance companies to allow these companies to take what are, in many cases, their first insurance exposure to markets and counterparties. This innovative credit insurance solution, which we call “Credit Mobilization,” is being pioneered to provide long-term funding to developing country banks, and may offer significant potential for scale-up and replication.
English | Note 52 - April 2018 |
Apr 17, 2018
Blended Finance: A Stepping Stone to Creating Markets
At the heart of IFC’s approach to blended finance are efforts to create and help sustain private markets with strong development impact. This note explores the role of blended finance in creating markets and looks at lessons from three blended finance projects and structures—and how each contributed to the creation of markets that are scalable, sustainable, and resilient.
English | 6pages - April - Note 51 - IFC 2018 |
Jan 30, 2018
Key Steps to Improve Agribusiness Competitiveness Part II: Research & Development, Logistics and Marketing
Agriculture is central to emerging market economies. In Africa it accounts for as much as 65 percent of employment and 32 percent of output. Globally, two-thirds of the world’s poor—some 750 million people—work in rural areas. But as economies expand and production shifts to manufacturing and services, agriculture’s share of employment and GDP decreases. At the same time, the broader agribusiness industry—business activities performed “from farm to fork”—is playing a more important role in growth and development. Improved land rights, better regulation of input and output markets, and better access to seeds and fertilizer are all critical to this transition. In Part II, the emphasis is on a shift of R&D spending from the public sector to private enterprises in middle-income countries focused on market opportunities related to advanced technologies and knowledge transfers.
English | 5 Pages - January - Note 50 | IFC, 2018 |
Jan 30, 2018
Key Steps to Improve Agribusiness Competitiveness Part I: Input and Output Markets
Agriculture is central to emerging market economies. In Africa it accounts for as much as 65 percent of employment and 32 percent of output. Globally, two-thirds of the world’s poor—some 750 million people—work in rural areas. But as economies expand and production shifts to manufacturing and services, agriculture’s share of employment and GDP decreases. At the same time, the broader agribusiness industry—business activities performed “from farm to fork”—is playing a more important role in growth and development. In Part I, the emphasis is on improved land rights, better regulation of input and output markets, and better access to seeds and fertilizer that are all critical to this transition.
English | 7 Pages - January - Note 49 | IFC, 2018 |
Jan 26, 2018
Increased Regulation and De-risking are Impeding Cross-Border Financing in Emerging Markets
Correspondent banking relationships connect banks and people across borders and are critical to finance and trade. They are a vital link between emerging markets and the broader global economy. Yet efforts to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism have increased compliance requirements for banks. Difficulties adhering to these requirements and increased costs associated with them threaten the ability of banks to serve their customers, while also eroding the number and quality of correspondent banking relationships. A recent IFC survey shows that many banks are feeling the pressure of increased regulation and de-risking, and emerging market banks are bearing the brunt of it.
English | 7 Pages - January - Note 48 | IFC, 2018 |
Oct 26, 2017
From Farm to Fork: Private Enterprise Can Reduce Food Loss Through Climate Smart Agriculture
More than a billion tons of food are lost annually across global food supply chains. Spillage, spoilage, insects, and rodents are the causes. Addressing it is a daunting challenge due to the complexity of the many factors involved. But it is a worthwhile challenge because of the potential benefits, including improved food security, nutrition, economic productivity, and response to climate change. Poor or nonexistent public infrastructure is often an underlying cause of food not being transported or processed effectively. And climate change damages existing infrastructure and increases losses. Despite the numerous environmental, economic, and socio-cultural barriers involved, there are many examples of private sector enterprises that have tackled post-harvest loss successfully. They focus on education, collaboration, and markets.
English | 8 Pages - October - Note 47 | IFC, 2017 |
Oct 26, 2017
Precision Farming Enables Climate-Smart Agribusiness
Emerging market countries can benefit from advanced farming technologies that mitigate the effects of climate change and protect environmental resources. Water scarcity is an issue that can be overcome by adopting climate-smart technologies such as micro-irrigation. There are several precision agriculture investment opportunities available to the private sector, including agricultural extension via digital advisory services, drip irrigation, solar pumps, and crop and soil monitoring.
English | 5 Pages - October - Note 46 | IFC, 2017 |
Oct 3, 2017
Beyond Fintech: Leveraging Blockchain for More Sustainable and Inclusive Supply Chains
Global value chains cross multiple borders and connect advanced and emerging economies, and are vehicles that can deliver on many of the promises of globalization. Yet operating them is complex and costly. Global trade since the great recession has slowed, in part because of a lack of transparency and interoperability within these networks. Blockchain, a technology with unique abilities to record, track, monitor, and exchange assets without need of an intermediary, may be the solution to many of the logistical and cost issues that plague the growth and operation of global value chains, especially in the case of food, agribusiness, and pharmaceuticals.
English | 7 Pages - September - Note 45 | IFC, 2017 |
Aug 21, 2017
Blockchain in Financial Services in Emerging Markets Part II
Blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, is now disrupting the financial services industry as part of a larger wave of external innovations by digital financial technologies. Emerging markets—due to their higher banking risks, lower bank penetration, and greater presence of digital financing—are an ideal backdrop for the adoption of blockchain-based financial solutions, and benefits could include a technological leap forward and a boost to financial inclusion and growth. This note focuses on selected regions in emerging markets where distributed ledger technology is already affecting the provision of financial services, including Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
English | 5 Pages - August - Note 44 | IFC, 2017 |
Aug 21, 2017
Blockchain in Financial Services in Emerging Markets Part I
Financial institutions around the world find themselves continually barraged by external innovations they are often unable to absorb and internalize. The emergence of innovative digital financial technologies has challenged traditional players in the sector by demonstrating new ways to deliver value across the entire financial value chain. Blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, is just such a disruptive—and possibly game-changing—innovation. Emerging markets may provide an ideal backdrop for the adoption of blockchain-based financial solutions, which can provide the basis for a technological leap forward and a boost to financial inclusion and growth.
English | 8 Pages - August - Note 43 | IFC, 2017 |
Aug 10, 2017
Digital Financial Services: Challenges and Opportunities for Emerging Market Banks
A digital transformation is taking place in the financial services industry, with a host of non-bank innovators offering both customer facing and back office financial technology products and services. This transformation includes emerging market economies, and in many places offers a viable digital alternative to traditional banks, which have left significant populations underbanked. This note explores the challenges and opportunities that financial technology innovations present for banks in these nations.
English | 9 Pages - August - Note 42 | IFC, 2017 |
Jul 26, 2017
Blockchain in Development -- Part II: How It Can Impact Emerging Markets
Blockchain has enormous potential for emerging markets. These nations appear poised for a more rapid adoption of blockchain, though a framework is needed to assess how the technology can be deployed and which applications and use cases are likely to be seen first. While the potential of blockchain is great, the technology is still at an early stage of development and will need to overcome potential setbacks—technical, regulatory, and organizational—before it becomes mainstream. In such a context of uncertainty, companies in emerging markets can neither afford to wait until the outcome is evident nor expose their existing business models to overly risky wholescale blockchain initiatives. Instead, they will need to adopt an experimental approach that allows them to develop options and thereby learn in the process, inform their strategies, and improve their value propositions.
English | 7 Pages - July - Note 41 | IFC, 2017 |
Jul 26, 2017
Blockchain in Development -- Part I: A New Mechanism of 'Trust'?
Blockchain is an exciting new technology that may prove to be a radical innovation with the power to disrupt existing economic and business models. It has the potential to deliver productivity gains to multiple industries, from the financial sector to energy markets, supply chains, intellectual property management, the public sector, and beyond. And blockchain may also prove particularly valuable in emerging market economies. Yet the technology is in early stages of development and serious challenges and risks, both technical and regulatory, will need to be addressed before it achieves widespread adoption. Questions remain about blockchain’s scalability, interoperability, security, transition costs, data privacy, and governance. And business leaders and policy makers will need to think long and hard about when and under what conditions a blockchain initiative may be warranted.
English | 6 Pages - July - Note 40 | IFC, 2017 |
Jun 22, 2017
Technology-Enabled Supply Chain Finance
Small and medium enterprises in emerging markets often lack access to the credit and liquidity they require for their daily working capital needs. This is partly due to the fact that the credit risk of such businesses is typically difficult to assess and their working capital needs are unpredictable. In most countries these businesses operate primarily in the retail and wholesale trade segments, and banks have generally not done enough to finance their domestic or international trade operations. Supply chain finance structures offer an alternative solution to finance the trade flows of these enterprises, with benefits for all stakeholders, including large enterprises, their SME trade counterparts, and financial institutions.
English | 7 Pages - June - Note 39 | IFC, 2017 |
May 24, 2017
Can Blockchain Technology Address De-Risking in Emerging Markets?
Blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, has the potential to address many problems in emerging markets. In this note we consider whether blockchain can be used to mitigate de-risking by financial institutions, which affects receivers of remittances, businesses that need correspondent banking relationships, and charities working in conflict countries.
English | 5 Pages - May - Note 38 | IFC, 2017 |
Apr 27, 2017
Creating Agricultural Markets: How the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange Connects Farmers and Buyers through Partnership and Technology
Commodity exchanges can provide emerging market economies with orderly, transparent, and efficient markets by acting as mechanisms that mitigate price risk, discover equilibrium prices, and connect buyers and sellers. Exchanges can also reduce transaction costs and information asymmetries by using technology to disseminate market information while creating better supply chains. The Ethiopia Commodity Exchange is striving to transform Ethiopia’s agriculture sector from a fragmented one marked by high transaction costs and low quality standards to a thriving and reliable part of the country’s economy. Ethiopia’s exchange continues to expand its activity across the farming regions of the country.
English | 4 Pages - April - Note 37 | IFC, 2017 |
Apr 19, 2017
Queen Alia International Airport – The Role of IFC in Facilitating Private Investment in a Large Airport Project
In 2007 Jordan lacked the financial resources and experience to embark on a renovation and expansion of its international airport, a colossal public-private undertaking. Yet by 2013 it was able to successfully complete the complex endeavor in collaboration with a private sector concessionaire, and without a sovereign guarantee, setting an example for countries and public-private project practitioners confronting similar circumstances. IFC played multiple roles in facilitating private investment over a 10-year period.
English | 5 Pages - April - Note 35 | IFC, 2017 |
Apr 13, 2017
Mobilizing Institutional Investments into Emerging Market Infrastructure
The infrastructure financing gap remains a critical global challenge for sustainable development. New thinking and innovative financial models are needed in order to mobilize more private capital to infrastructure investments. IFC’s new Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Program for Infrastructure seeks to address numerous infrastructure financing challenges that inhibit the flow of resources to emerging markets. The program provides an innovative model for mobilizing financing for infrastructure projects that combines financing from insurance companies, project origination and credit enhancement from IFC, and support from public sector donors.
English | 4 Pages - April - Note 36 | IFC, 2017 |
Mar 28, 2017
How Fintech is Reaching the Poor in Africa and Asia: A Start-Up Perspective
This note explores the way traditional banks and financial technology companies, or FinTechs, interact in Africa and Asia, and their ability to offer innovative digital financial services that grant unbanked individuals access to financial transactions. The FinTech sector is experiencing explosive growth in both continents, but while Asian banks have managed to efficiently integrate with FinTech solutions, African banks have been slower to adapt to this change. Still, the outlook for mobile banking remains positive, and its prevalence will boost the financial industry in both regions.
English | 6 Pages - March - Note 34 | IFC, 2017 |
Mar 1, 2017
Creating Markets in Turkey's Power Sector
The World Bank Group’s engagement in Turkey’s power sector, which began in the 1990s and continues today, has helped to expand independent power production and privatize electricity distribution in the country. Significant investments made in both generation and distribution shifted the power sector toward private investment and management while meeting growing energy needs.
English | 3 Pages - March - Note 33 | IFC, 2017 |
